Assoc. Prof. Mag. iur. Dr. iur. Susanne Kissich
Professor Kissich began her career as a university assistant at the Institute for Civil Law after completing her diploma studies, court practice, a course in legal informatics and management training. She wrote her dissertation on international nuclear liability law, during which she completed a research stay at the Georg-August University of Göttingen. In January 2015, she habilitated at the Rewi Graz with her thesis "Ehrschutz im Privatrecht" and was appointed Associate Professor shortly afterwards. She has been Deputy Head of the Institute since 2021.
From the very beginning, she has enjoyed teaching and research and has been active in university administration (e.g. on appointment and habilitation committees, as a faculty member, deputy member of the Senate, on arbitration committees and much more). She is particularly passionate about promoting young talent, which she is committed to as a member of the doctoral program "European Private Law" and, above all, in the personnel development advisory board (previously in the university cross-mentoring program for post-docs).
Her publications mainly focus on debt and family law, but also deal with interfaces to other areas of law such as compensation for damages in employment law, immission control law, legal history and the significance of fundamental rights for civil law. Her current research focuses on family law and the protection of personality rights under civil law in relation to fundamental rights with a focus on legal violations in the digital space ("hate on the internet") with special consideration of European legal acts.
Professor Kissich is particularly fascinated by the combination of research and teaching. From 2016 to 2021, she and Professor Markus Steppan maintained an intensive teaching and research cooperation with the University of Pécs (workshops with students and experts from the field, seminars with excursions, comparative law publication on family law). As part of this cooperation, she also designed a one-year course on Austrian private law for the University of Pécs, which she ran and taught together with Markus Steppan. They were honored for these projects by the University of Pécs at a ceremony in September 2021.
At the University of Graz, Professor Kissich teaches at the Sowi, Nawi and Rewi faculties. Her courses cover a broad spectrum, from contract and liability law to inheritance and family law to personal rights on the internet. She particularly enjoys working with practitioners. She also works as a lecturer for Uni for Life (LL.M. Business Law, Insurance Management course) and is involved in lecture series.